Help, Fix or Serve?

‘Helping, fixing and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole.’

A nice illustration of the differences between helping, fixing and serving. Credit to @sitwithwhit

I came across Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen's article (linked below) thanks to an Instagram post by @sitwithwhit. Her premise is that the attitude a professional has can determine how they'll treat their clients.

Therapists, doctors or healers are not technicians who are able to fix a body that is separate from the beliefs, thoughts and habits of the soul that inhabits them.

If that were the case, it wouldn't matter how you were treated when you came to see someone; if they were kind or cruel the result would be the same. Yet, fixing and helping don't always allow us to connect with the other person and creates distance and authority instead. That is why people leave appointments feeling unheard and unseen and a disempowered person isn't one who is in the best place to heal.

Do you think there's any difference between service, helping, and fixing?

Help Movementum.jpg — Helping, Fixing or Serving?

by Rachel Naomi Remen

Excerpt from Helping, Fixing or Serving by Rachel Naomi Remen:

Service rests on the premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.

Serving is different from helping. Helping is not a relationship between equals. A helper may see others as weaker than they are, needier than they are, and people often feel this inequality. The danger in helping is that we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity or even wholeness.

When we help, we become aware of our own strength. But when we serve, we don’t serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve; our wounds serve; even our darkness can serve. My pain is the source of my compassion; my woundedness is the key to my empathy.

Serving makes us aware of our wholeness and its power. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals: our service strengthens us as well as others. Fixing and helping are draining, and over time we may burn out, but service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will renew us. In helping we may find a sense of satisfaction; in serving we find a sense of gratitude.

- F

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